Indian Company to Begin Corona Vaccine Production in Two Weeks

The Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest maker of vaccines by volume will very soon start the mass-producing vaccine candidate developed by the University of Oxford, which started testing it on humans last week. The University of Oxford is a leader in the global race to develop an antidote.

Even though the vaccine called “ChAdOx1 nCoV-19”, is yet to be proven to work against COVID-19, Serum decided to start manufacturing in two weeks as it is a success in animal trials. The Oxford vaccine will finish the trials is likely to finish in September.

Serum, owned by the Indian billionaire Cyrus Poonawalla, plans to make the vaccine at its two manufacturing plants in the western city of Pune, aiming to produce up to 400 million doses next year if all goes well. The price would be likely to be around 1,000 Rupees but the Government is likely to give it to people for free.

Serum will spend some 300 million to 400 million rupees on making around 3-5 million doses per month in the next five months. Serum has also partnered with the U.S. biotech firm Codagenix and Austria’s Themis on two other COVID-19 vaccine candidates and plans to announce the fourth alliance in a couple of weeks